On Veterans Day, Nov. 11, events all around Perham honored members of the armed forces who have served our country. Events began at Perham High School, with a breakfast for veterans and their families. The high school student body then joined the Perham VFW and attending veterans for their annual Veterans Day Program in the auditorium.

This is the eighth in a series of stories introducing new teachers who have joined the Perham-Dent School District. Nikki Schneeberger is the new eighth grade health and physical education teacher at Prairie Wind Middle School. She is originally from Walker, Minn. She attended Minnesota State University of Moorhead, earning a degree in health and physical education.

Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a twice-monthly series spotlighting Perham seniors. Ingrid Sepp doesn’t remember much about when she and her family fled the Russian military’s advance during World War II. She didn’t pay that much attention to it, she said – she was just a child.

Perham High School was put under lockdown earlier today as a precautionary measure. Perham-Dent School District Superintendent Mitch Anderson said the high school was put under lockdown between 9 and 9:15 a.m., for about 30 minutes. A representative from the Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Department, which handled the incident, said they received a report of a possible suicidal juvenile who was communicating with a student at the school.

Seven years ago, a program began in Minnesota to make it easier for deer hunters to contribute their extra venison to their local food shelves. The program is usually supported well by hunters in the Perham area; however, tighter deer limits tend to drastically reduce the number of donations – and that’s a likely scenario this year. Venison is popular among those who use the Perham Community Food Shelf, said John Leikness, the non-profit’s executive director.

Prairie Wind Middle School students have a new chance to put their thinking caps to use while competing in Jr. High Knowledge Bowl. After a long absence, Perham’s team has been back for two months, and the season is looking good for the 11 participating Yellowjackets. The activity was brought back for students by seventh grade science teacher, Jenni Melvin, and Robert Tangen, who teaches Spanish in the middle and high schools and was the previous Knowledge Bowl coach.

Members of the Perham-Dent School Board and district administration met last Wednesday to review recommendations from the community task force. Two weeks prior, members of the task force presented a report with their opinion that a new high school building should be constructed near the district’s middle and elementary schools, and that additions to those two schools should be considered to better accommodate Perham-Dent’s needs.

Find this and other feature stories about bright, brilliant women of the Perham area in our 2014 Luminous magazine. The magazine is in today's Perham Focus newspaper, or online at http://sections.perhameb.com/specialsections/flipbooks/luminous-2014.html.

Six meetings, four facility tours and dozens of pages of information were summed up in a presentation by community task force members at the Perham-Dent School Board’s October meeting. “It was really an eye-opener for me to tour all of the facilities… just to see what they were like and what we’re asking our people to work with,” said task force participant Bernie Steeves before presenting the group’s recommendations to the board. “I never knew what condition this school was (in) until I had a chance to take a